For the first podcast of 2017, we’re talking about the state of the podcast. Starting with what I wanted to achieve and how well I feel I’ve executed on that, and moving into what I plan to do going forward.

Long story short, for 2017, while I’m still going to be publishing on Thrusdays at 5PM eastern time, I’m not going to be strictly adhering to a weekly format. Instead, I’ll be publishing when the podcast is done. I’ll also be working on getting the show length down when reasonable, and improving my presentation as much as I can.

The handedness of a lens is not something I ever really thought about. That’s not to say I didn’t understand the concept of handedness, it’s just not something I ever put together with lenses.

If you’re not familiar with handedness, in any system that converts a rotational movement into a linear movement along that things axis, there are only two ways to relate those things. We’ve given these two “rules” names, after our hands, the right-hand rule, and the left-hand rule.

The focus and zoom controls on a lens follow these rules too. This means we can apply a handedness rule to a lens if we forget which way to turn it to make the focus or zoom move we want.

This podcast is certainly a bit later than I had anticipated. I spent the last two weeks of October traveling around the US Southwest, hitting and photographing a bunch of points of interest. These included the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion, Monument Valley, Antelope Canyon, Mesa Verde, and the Durango and Silverton railroad. After that, I managed to get sick the day I was to fly back home, and generally have a sore throat and cough for the following week and a bit.

But sick or not, there are a whole lot I learned and relearned, and I want to share as much of that as I reasonably can before I forget stuff.

Until recently, the biggest hassle and hurdle for me with respect to traveling with camera gear has been flying. In preparing for my upcoming trip to the American south west, I’ve started having to contend with a much bigger problem; hiking.

Before I go on, do note, these show notes are notes, not a complete transcript of the podcast. I do try to hit on the major topic areas and provide relevant links and pictures, but I do not make an effort to verbatim cover every part of the topics discussed.

This time I talk about a novice’s question, “What lens should I buy next?” This is one question that’s always frustrated me on the answering side of the discussion for a number of reasons. In this podcast I’m going to try and pass along some thoughts and tips to help you shape this question into a better one that’s more productive for you and the people you’re asking.

I got my hands on my 5D mark IV much sooner than I had ever expected. These are my first impressions with the camera. I’m not going to write a long post here, like I did in last weeks episode, since I’m getting into actual review territory. However, suffice to say, the 5D mark IV is, in my opinion, very much a significant improvement over Canon’s previous products.

A quick update on what to expect in the coming months for content and a discussion about some of the challenges and processes involved in the engineering behind cameras; mainly why Canon may have chosen to go with MJPEG for 4k video instead of h.264.

For the past couple of years, I’ve posted articles talking about my impressions about most higher end camera. This time I’ll be doing this both as a text post and as a podcast. These notes are not exactly a summary of the podcast, but they should be close. I’m actually writing this independently of recording, not transcribing my recording.

I don’t get early hardware from any manufacturer, so this is mostly my impressions based on past experiences and published specifications.

Canon’s EOS M3 is not a new camera, at this point it’s a year and a half old, but it is new to me. These are my thoughts on my first impressions with the camera. I’ve only had one for a couple of days now, so this isn’t a detailed review. That said, my early impressions are that I really like this camera.